he murmured.
“I’ve already got a band. Thanks, though. What’s the band’s name?” I asked.
“The Shy-Lads,” he replied. Huge negative.
A week later, I heard that persistent knock, knock, knock, and found Larry Millas, again, at the door. This guy just wouldn’t take no for an answer!
“I’ve got this band. We’re called the Shy-Lads.”
“I know, I know! That’s a terrible name,” I replied bluntly.
“Yeah, our drummer’s dad came up with it. But, really,” he said, “come over to Bob Erhart’s house. He plays drums and Bob Bergland plays bass.”
I already knew Bob Bergland. We had been in the same Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts troop. Our fathers were friends and we were both from close-knit, supportive families. In fact, Larry told me that Bob’s mom had recently cashed in her S & H Green Stamps (these were stamps you would receive for purchasing merchandise at various stores that you would paste into booklets and redeem for other merchandise) to buy her son a shiny, new, copper-finished six-string Danelectro bass. The “Dano” was an American brand distinctive for its use of Formica and composite board instead of wood for its body. The magnetic pickups were cased in what appeared to be lipstick cases. I found out later they actually were lipstick cases!
So, finally, I gave in to Larry’s persistence and agreed to come and play. A few days later I walked the four long blocks to current drummer Bob Erhart’s home, lugging my Wandre guitar and Al Tobias’s fifty-pound plus Magnatone amplifier. I would have to stop about every fourth bungalow to rest and shift hands.
In Erhart’s tiny attic space, the boys were working on the song “Tell Me Why,” a brand-new one from the Beatles (that places the date exactly in time: the summer of ’64). Fortunately, I knew this tune very well and joined right in.
I started strumming the chords on the guitar, mimicking John Lennon’s rhythm part (even then, Lennon was my favorite), while Larry sang the lead vocal. I noticed right away that when I sang harmony, the other guys did not switch to my part. That impressed me to no end!
The hallmark of a lousy band is when one of the singers is swayed to move up or down to another band member’s part. These guys stayed on their own parts! Actually, this was the main thing that convinced me to leave The Renegades behind and join The Shy-Lads. (I didn’t want to rock the boat that first day, but something had to be done about both the name and drummer Bob Erhart’s clunky-looking 1940s natural-wood drum kit—actually I now realize it was pretty cool!) Plus, Larry had a very good voice. Still, there was work to be done. I knew I had to give these guys a crash course in vocal phrasing.
Now, every Beatles fan knows that the verse in “Tell Me Why” goes, “Well, I gave you everything I had, but you left me standing all alone…”
“No offense, Lar, but your phrasing is all wrong,” I said, hoping that I wasn’t launching an attack. “The phrase ‘I gave you everything I had’ is sung bunched up quickly like this [I demonstrated], not sung slowly. Same thing with the words ‘but you left me standing on my own,’” I added. “The rest of the line follows from there.”
Larry looked at me. I guessed that he was not used to being challenged in this way, and then, after what seemed like an interminable, deadly silence, he replied, “Let me try it that way.”
Whew, now I knew I had to be in this band! How could I have known that this day would give way to a fifty-year journey that sees no chance of stopping? From this attic rehearsal, my career would be catapulted into motion.
The next day, I told the members of The Renegades that it was over—I was disbanding the group and joining The Shy-Lads. Though I braced myself for a meltdown, there were no tears. The anticlimactic sendoff made me realize just how uncommitted these guys were to making it big. Obviously, our time together had just been a lark to them!
The next time I got together with Larry and the guys, I sheepishly ventured, “We really should find a new name. The Shy-Lads is really bad. How about The Shondels?”
I had been keeping this name in my back pocket for a while now. I had first seen it in the back pages of a Melody Maker newspaper (I treasured these publications because they represented the whole allure of the British rock culture), which Alice Anne had brought back to me after visiting England and Scotland with her Scottish fiancé and future husband, Jim McCabe.
My culture-crazed sister had also carried back these other amazing recordings: The Shadows’ Greatest Hits, smashes by Freddie and the Dreamers (this was before their dance, “the Freddie,” became popular; it resembled a Kingfisher penguin flapping its appendages mindlessly against its thighs), and the debut LP by a new English group called The Rolling Stones! “England’s newest hit makers!”
But it was the adverts, in the back of that newspaper, that intrigued me most. It was like being in the London Underground gazing at emerging bands with strange and fascinating names: The Steampacket, The Underbeats, Shane Fenton and the Fentones, and The Graham Bond Organisation (note British spelling!). They were performing in clubs such as the Cavern, the Marquee, and the Rainbow. It was in these back pages I noticed a performance by an obscure group called The Shondels.
They were a small-time British band playing tiny clubs in London. I figured (correctly) that they’d never make it, and history proved me right. But, I also liked the name because it was the last name of one of my favorite artists, Troy Shondel. His hit “This Time” was currently in high rotation on my turntable.
Larry, in his unvarnished honesty, asked, “What’s a Shondel?”
I told him that I had absolutely no idea, but added, “It sounds cool, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Larry said. “It sounds cool!” Everyone else agreed. That day we officially became The Shondels.
That agreement marked the beginning of forever. We rehearsed tirelessly and went from teen club to teen club, from church event to recreation center, offering our services. The routine was exhausting, but it paid off. We soon begged our parents to buy us matching Sears Roebuck Silvertone amps. These were “piggyback” models where the amplifier section was separate from the speaker cabinet and perched on top. It made for easier cartage and more flexibility.
We made our grand debut.
When we hit the Berwyn Recreation Center (known as “The Rec”), we gave our hard sell to the director, Fritz Ploegman.
“Well boys, I’d like to have you play our Saturday night dance, but of course, you’d have to ‘donate your services.’” That’s not the last time we would hear that phrase from countless teen center managers and club owners.
These performances went really well. I remember the kids dancing, frugging, ponying, and twisting to our repertoire, which included hits by the Beatles and The Ventures. We also covered “Bad Motorcycle” and “I’ve Had It” by the Crestones.
Then there was our selection of Beach Boys songs, which offered us a good excuse to show off our emerging harmonies. We did “Fun, Fun, Fun,” “409,” and “Surfin’ Safari.” Then we’d cut loose with “Carhop,” by the Exports, “Land of 1,000 Dances,” by Cannibal and the Headhunters, and even a cover of the Chiffons’ hit “He’s So Fine” (changed to “She’s So Fine”—we loved singing that “doo lang, doo lang, doo lang” hook in three-part harmony!).
We even started sneaking some of our originals into the set: The Ventures-inspired “Corruption” and “Torque Out” (“I’ll get the car, you buy the gas, I’ll bring the girls…Torque Out!”).
After starting out with a wicked snare drum rim shot, I intoned the first song’s ominous hook, “Corruption.” Then Bob Bergland took over with the “Peter Gunn”–inspired bass line. I continued our Ventures homage by adding the twangy lead on my sunburst Jazzmaster.
Time flew by. I became a freshman, and the other guys became sophomores. After being